The Last Rose
by jenelin
Summary: Jareth helps Sarah at the end of her life.


The Last Rose

By jenelin

Author's Note: Labyrinth_ does not belong to me, and therefore Sarah and Jareth do not belong to me. I simply like to borrow them for a time and play with them. This bittersweet (more bitter than sweet) story just came to my one night, and I had to get it out. So here it is! Enjoy - comments are always appreciated!_

@>-------'--------,---------

**The Beginning: Faded**

_'Tis the last rose of summer,  
Left blooming alone:  
All her lovely companions  
Are faded and gone;  
No flower of her kindred,  
No rosebud is nigh,  
To reflect back her blushes  
Or give sigh for sigh._  
- 'The Last Rose' by Thomas Moore

There was never any laughter. There was never any light. There was never any happiness. 

Long ago there had been crying, but that had stopped as well. 

Now there was only silence and darkness and broken dreams. 

Long ago... 

Long ago she had been someone. She had been able to call on her friends, and they had come. She had wanted to live. But she had grown up. Really grown up, and the last remnants of childhood had withered and vanished. 

She had wanted to follow her dreams, but she found that they were gone. So she existed, as was expected. She worked, she married, she divorced. It was not a remarkable life, but she lived it as best she could. 

Her heart, however, was not in it. She wondered sometimes if she still possessed such a thing. Perhaps it too had faded away with her fantasies. 

And now she was tired. She spent most of her days in her room, alone. She saw no one. 

Once upon a time, she had a brother who visited her, but he had long since given up, for she stopped speaking to him. 

There was a mirror in her room. It was old, an antique she had picked up in the long forgotten past, and it was beautiful. Carvings of faeries, unicorns and castles framed it. She would sit in front of it for hours, staring at the reflection that she knew to be herself, though it looked nothing like her. Hair, dull and limp, framed a thin face. Translucent skin stretched over fragile bones. Dry lips that had forgotten how to laugh. 

Thirty-four years old, and she felt eighty. 

She knew she was sick, and she did not care. 

When they told her she was dying, she felt nothing. 

She almost felt dead already. 

So she stayed in her room. Every few days her neighbor would come to see if she needed anything. She knew that he was coming to see if she was dead. 

The room was nearly empty. The mirror, a chair, a bed. She had taken the pictures from the walls and given away her books. The mirror was the only thing of beauty she wanted, although she did not know why. It reminded her of the world of fantasy and dreams she had long since given up, and she knew she should hate it. But when she sat in front of it, her faded form reflected in it, she knew that she could not. 

Sometimes, when she was tired, she would look into it, and a tiny spark of imagination would flicker, just for a moment. She would see her reflection as it once had been. She would see the friends she had once had. 

Sometimes, she would see the one who had ruined her. The one who had taken her dreams away. 

When she slept, he was there too. His cold eyes mocking her, challenging her. Always laughing at her, for she had been foolish. She had not accepted what he offered her; she had not known what it was. And now that she knew, it was too late. Too late to return, too late to give him her love. If he had ever existed at all. 

Her youth had been filled with fairy tales. He had probably just been one more. An exceptionally realistic dream that for some reason insisted on sticking in her mind. 

On her bad days, she dwelt only on her pain. She remembered the misery of the past few years. The heartbreak she had experienced. 

On her good days, she remembered happiness, although she could not remember what it felt like. In her mind she saw herself, young and innocent, pretending to live a fantasy. Dreaming of her favorite book and thinking the characters were real. And growing older in such a short time. A journey, real or pretend, into her greatest dream. Trials she had not imagined. And a king who, in the end, was not who she expected. 

A king who had loved her, in his fashion. And she knew that she would have returned his love, if she had not been so young. If she had known what love was. 

Instead, she had destroyed him, and with him, her dreams had shattered. 

For a while, at least, she had been happy. Her companions on her journey still visited her, or she imagined that they did. But one day, when she tried to conjure them, they did not come. And on that day her heart began to fade. 

Her beautiful fantasies gone. Her hopes and dreams gone. Her life and vitality, fragile as a crystal ball, gone. 

And then she woke up one morning and knew she was going to die. 

**The Middle: Dreams**

_I'll not leave thee, thou lone one  
To pine on the stem;  
Since the lovely are sleeping,  
Go, sleep thou with them;  
Thus kindly I scatter  
Thy leaves on the bed,  
Where thy mates of the garden  
Lie scentless and dead.  
_ - 'The Last Rose' by Thomas Moore

Far away from the lonely room, a king sat in his castle. He had been defeated, but he had regained his power. His life was much the same as it had been before the girl. 

He smiled sometimes when he thought of her, though she had beaten him. 

He had to admire her courage, her persistence. Sometimes he wondered what her life had become, but he never looked in on her. Instead he left her alone, remembering her as she had been when he fell in love with her. Young and beautiful and untainted by life. He knew he had shattered her dreams, just as she had shattered his power, but he did not care. She had asked for everything he did to her. Everything he did for her. 

His own life had not been noticeably changed. Perhaps he sometimes remembered dark hair and defiant words and was surprised that his heart still leapt within his chest. Perhaps he sometimes found himself hoping that she would find her way back to his castle. Perhaps he sometimes wished he had a queen by his side, a queen who truly loved him. 

And then he woke up one morning and knew she was going to die. 

He was, at first, surprised. Time was a different thing to him, but he knew that she must still be young. He told himself that it was not his concern what happened to her. If she died, it was nothing to him. She had long since left his life, and he had left her alone. 

But as he went through his day, the idea of her death insistently tugged at his mind. He could not ignore it. 

So he conjured a crystal which grew into a mirror. 

The mirror was ancient, and around its border there danced faeries and unicorns, heroes and castles. 

And in the mirror, instead of his own reflection, he saw that of a woman, faded and alone. He saw Death's kiss upon her cheek, and knew that she would soon be gone. As he watched her, he saw the pain sweep through her features. 

She was hardly recognizable. 

And yet... 

There was something in her eyes. Behind the pain and weariness, behind the misery and bitterness. There was still a spark of determination. He saw that it was focused on finishing her life in darkness. She was determined to die surrounded by the mess she had let her life become. And the king, horrified at what her innocence had become, knew that he would enter her life one more time, whether she wanted him to or not. For he had loved what she had once been, and he at last felt guilt for killing her fantasies. 

@>-------'--------,---------

Staring into her mirror, she imagined that she had become transparent. She was a ghost, a haunting figure. For the first time in months, she spoke. 

"Hello, Sarah," she whispered to her reflection, her voice raspy and dry. 

When her reflection did not answer, she continued, unconcerned. 

"You are Sarah. I lost you a long time ago. But I want to see you again, just one more time. I'll be leaving soon. I'm glad to be leaving. I want to rest." 

She contemplated her reflection. Somehow she looked younger, though she felt so old. If she concentrated, she could see the shadow of what she had been. 

"You were very innocent. And selfish. Very, very selfish. It would have been better if you had not been so. Perhaps you wouldn't have made such a mess of things. But that's past." 

Her attention was drawn away from her reflection to the frame of the mirror. "Strange," she said, tracing the carvings with a skeletal hand. "I never noticed the castles before. How they look so much like his castle. The castle beyond the Goblin city." 

She laughed then, but it was bitter and empty. "I could have stayed there forever, in his castle. In his labyrinth. I could have lived in its beauty. I could have danced there forever with him. And the moon would have smiled on us, and my heart would have lived. And I would not be looking at you now. I could have been happy with him." 

And then her tone changed. "I bet he would've been one good fuck." She imagined that her reflection was shocked, and it almost amused her. 

"You can't imagine how good," whispered a voice in her ear. 

She stiffened, scared to turn around. "So I've begun to hallucinate," she said to herself, but she did not believe it. The warm breath caressing her neck told her otherwise. 

Slowly she turned, and there he stood, looking just as he always had. 

"Hello, Sarah," he said. 

He was beautiful. Porcelain and fire, strength and fluidity. But his eyes...his eyes were not as cold as they had been. 

"You," she said, without emotion. 

"Me. I would ask how you are, but..." 

"I know. I look like hell." 

He smiled slightly, and her heart, long asleep, jumped. "I would say that you looked like a rose." 

She laughed, really laughed. It was quite bizarre. She was dying, and a stunning childhood fantasy was in her room, smiling his wicked smile and making her feel like Sarah again. "A rose? You jest." 

"No. A rose. A withered rose, the petals about to fall." 

"Well, I suppose that's better than looking like hell." 

He shook his head. "Sadder, I would say." And his eyes, always so guarded, truly looked sad. 

"I'm sorry," she told him, rising slowly and making her way to the window. "I'm sorry you're seeing me like this. I'm dying, you know." 

"Yes, I know. That's why I came." 

"To revel in my final defeat?" 

"No. To apologize." 

"Please don't." Her body grew weaker, and she collapsed on the bed. "I don't want to hear it. I was just as much at fault as you. I must have hurt you terribly. But let's neither of us apologize. For what's past is past." 

"Then let me give you something." 

She appeared not to hear him. The moon was huge outside her window, and she was entranced by it. So much light, bathing the world. "Could you open the window? I want to let the moon in." 

"Of course." He did it and then stood, a shadow framed in the bright light that shone in. 

"I loved you. I don't mind telling you now." She smiled at him. "Funny, isn't it? That I fell in love with you even while I thought you were horrible?" 

"Not so strange," he replied. "I was everything you wanted me to be." 

"Except in the end. You were too tired in the end." 

She coughed, covering her mouth, and when she finished there were flecks of dark blood on her white hand. He sat on the bed beside her, and took her hand in his, shocked by how cold she was. His touch was warm. Shivers of feeling ran up her arm, and she closed her eyes. She tried to imagine that they were somewhere else, and that she was well. His voice brought her back to reality. 

"I want to give you something, Sarah. Something to make the end easier." 

He let go of her hand and stood up, seeming to grow more majestic. A crystal appeared in his hand, and he held it out to her. It sparkled and shimmered, and she reached out for it, but did not touch it. 

"So this is how it ends," she whispered, more to herself than to the king. Then she smiled at him, the brilliant smile that had once been hers. "I was intent on dying in misery, as I lived. I am no longer bitter about it. I am too near death to care. But I am glad that you came." 

"Long ago, I offered you your dreams, and you rejected them. Will you take this now, Sarah? One final dream?" 

Sarah coughed again. The moon outside seemed to grow, and the room seemed to shrink. Everything grew fuzzy, except for the mismatched eyes that looked at her intently. "Now I have nothing to lose," she said. "And so I accept your gift." 

"Take it, then, and sleep well." 

She lifted her hand to the crystal, then paused, looking into his eyes. "Thank you, Jareth," she smiled, and then she held the orb in her hand. 

The world began to fade quickly, but before everything was black she heard him speak once more. 

"I loved you too, Sarah." 

And then the world disappeared. 

**The End: Requiem**

In her final dream, she was no longer sick. Under a moonlit sky she wandered in a garden. Her friends were there, long forgotten. There she met her brother, and her mother, as she had always wanted her mother to be. The stars above sang for them, and Sarah danced, danced with everyone she had loved. Her bare feet flew across the soft grass, and her laughter rang throughout the land. And then he came, he who she had always loved, Jareth the Goblin King. 

They danced together under the stars, slowly. As they twirled endlessly, Sarah was content. They talked as they danced, of love and sadness and lost chances. Of dreams. And when Sarah finally grew tired, they sat together under a tree, and she rested with her head on his shoulder. 

"You must sleep now, Sarah," he told her, and he kissed her lips. 

"I know," she said. "But I am not sad, for you have restored my dreams." 

And he kissed her again, and she tasted his passion and love, and then she slept. 

@>-------'--------,---------

Jareth watched her until her breath stopped. A smile was on her lips, and she looked happy and almost innocent. 

"So I have done one good deed," he said to himself, and he was glad. 

He stood over her for some time, bathed in the moonlight. 

Her neighbor would find her the next day, and her family would be notified. She would be mourned. 

But that night she was mourned by the Goblin King, whose sadness was greater than any other's. 

He left her as the first rays of the sun peeked over the horizon. "I loved you greatly, Sarah. I hope you realized how much." And looking at the smile on her serene face, he knew that she had. "Farewell, love. So ends our story." 

And on the wings of the dawn, he flew away.   
  
  



End file.
